Sep 21, 2021 - Sale 2579

Sale 2579 - Lot 127

Price Realized: $ 3,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000

MAN RAY (1890-1976)


Pain peint (Blue Bread) (Catalogue d'exposition Man Ray qui s'est tenue à la Galerie Alexandre Iolas à Paris en 1973-74).
Exhibition catalogue with complete text, a multiple of a miniature baguette painted in blue on the front cover and numerous color illustrations, including illustrations based on Man Ray's Revolving Doors collages from 1916-17 (reproduced as color pochoirs in 1926). 240x170 mm; 9 1/2x6 3/4 inches. 1973.

Martin 127.

Andrew Strauss and Timothy Baum of the Man Ray Expertise Committee have confirmed the authenticity of this work and that the edition will be included in the Catalogue of Objects & Sculptures of Man Ray, currently in preparation. Man Ray Expertise Committee reference: 00190-O-2021.

Provenance: Gift from the artist Dorothea Tanning to Virginia Zabriskie.

Pain peint, a painted blue baguette, was conceived by Man Ray in 1958; this exhibition catalogue with a miniature replica of Pain peint on the front cover was published in 1973 as the commemorative exhibition catalogue for the one-man show Man Ray held at the Galerie Alexandre Iolas, Paris, 1973-74.

Man Ray described the readymade Pain peint in 1972 as follows, "You see, when I painted a local bread blue, the idea of a title came to me almost immediately and almost automatically: in French 'pain peint', painted bread, because it sounds also like the kids running down the street after a fire engine and imitating the sound of the sirens: 'pain–pain–pain–pain–pain–pain', you know."